Posts of Old Posts

This content is largely curated from old blogs I maintained from 1999-2002 and 2005-2008. Many of the posts are updated with modern takes on the subject matter, addressing changes in my beliefs or the world at large.

Waking up with a week’s worth of food strewn about the campsite, most of it eaten by a large wilderness predator was not the best start to my Boy Scout patrol’s second day on the trail. Looking around in the dim dawn light, trying to make sense of it all…

Having taken the small taxi boat across Evolution Lake, our troop was ready to embark on the week-long wilderness trip that would provide a lifetime of memories. Comprised of several patrols, largely separated by age and experience, our group began to make headway into the California wilderness, following our maps and the loose trails carved by generations of previous hikers.

The Summer of 1999 brought with it phenomenal memories as my Boy Scout troop eschewed our normal summer camp plans and set out for a week-long hiking adventure into Evolution Valley, just South of Yosemite. Encounters with bears, unprepared Scoutmasters, and long...

The first time I competed in swimming was the Spring of my Sophomore year of high school, and as my wife and I return to the pool in hope to get back into shape, I am reminded of how particularly inverse my experience now is from those early days. Back then my body...

Over the past ten years, I have presided over and participated in nearly one-hundred Initiations – the ceremony where one first becomes a Freemason. Literally thousands of hours of practice, study, and rehearsal, to make sure the candidate has the most moving and...

With a twenty-year career of stage productions and improvisational acting, I’m regularly asked by colleagues and clients where and how I got my start speaking to large groups of people. Usually fairly introverted, being in crowds and putting on public displays...